Scarlet Letter Persuasive Letter

“All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” Through instinct and reasoning, Ralph Waldo Emerson conveys the consequence of living a lifestyle with the absence of ‘root, bud, and fruits.’ Because of the social norms that has progressively become more strict today, society has become desensitized due to social norms degrading both men and women to be true to themselves towards others. People accustom to living out a life where they lack imperfection and adapt to the dictation of society without revealing their true instinct. Through Nathaniel Hawthorne's exemplification

To the Puritans, the scaffold resembles a place of humiliation, but for distinctly Hester, Pearl and Reverend Dimmesdale, it mirrors their progress of becoming pure. When the scaffold is first introduced, it is seen as an ‘instrument of discipline’ (63). The scaffold is seen as a device of both death and punishment, a force that places penance for every bad deed done. Hester’s accusation of committing adultery leads her to stand on the platform and suffer from the ‘roar of laughter burst from the multitude’ (65). Though the scaffold represents death and punishment, as the novel develops, it starts to symbolize how it is a sign of progress and a stage where sins are free to be revealed. In the novel, Hester and Pearl are seen as the only people who are on the scaffold in the beginning. Although Hester chooses to tell the truth, she admits to being imperfect such as how the society wants every Puritan to be. Scaffolds are seen as something that is higher which represents someone being closer to heaven whereas standing on the ground below the scaffold is the Puritan society and Roger Chillingworth. The symbolism of the Puritans and Chillingworth on the ground represents how they never confess their sins and how they are in the representation of hell. Hawthorne's representation of the scaffold creates the idea of how those who step

The meaning of the scaffold slowly progresses throughout the novel when Dimmesdale comes to reveal his sins unattended at night at the scaffold. During the session Dimmesdale has, a meteor lights up the sky and reveals the letter ‘A’: “So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth” (169). Dimmesdale revealing his truth upon the scaffold suggests that the scaffold alleviates his guilt. The meteor symbolizes the presence of God and how he tries to reveal Dimmesdale's sin to the whole society. The scaffold slowly becomes less of a threat to Dimmesdale because it helps progress him and build up the courage to reveal his sins. Hester and Pearl also come and stand along him as they all stand “in the noon of the strange and solemn splendour” (170). Hawthorne creates the idea of unity to show how when trying to be true, people aren’t alone. Hawthorne uses both a spiritual companion of God and physical companions of Hester and Pearl to reassure him. The scaffold shows the separation between personal belief and rules, where the ground is the rules with concrete and where the scaffold is made out of wood, which relates towards nature. The scaffold reveals the benefits of living a true life as Hester is the only one to live out a true